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Napoleon in Egypt

In 1798, the young Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Egypt with an army of 40,000 to conquer its Mameluke rulers and a platoon of scientists and artists to introduce the country to the wonders of western civilisation. A year later, relinquishing grandiose ideas of becoming "Emperor of the East", he abandoned his men and returned to France. Nelson's destruction of his supporting fleet at the Battle of the Nile, stubborn guerrilla resistance by the Mamelukes and the disastrous impact of disease all combined to thwart his ambitions. The Egyptian campaign's greatest legacy turned out to be the work of the savants he took with him who revealed the relics of an ancient civilisation of which Europe knew nothing. Strathern, primarily interested in the fate of the soldiers, fails to make as much of these intellectual achievements as he might have done but, as a stirring narrative of doomed military endeavour, his book